And then she got angry..........

The past couple of weeks haven't been the best. I horrified my doctor because she discovered that I'd lost around 12 kilos in weight in the past couple of months. I was a tall and skinny length of womanhood to start with so losing that sort of weight wasn't a particularly clever thing to do. My kidneys are misbehaving again too which is annoying so we're back with regular blood tests again along with medication changes.

My doctor changed me from Brufen to Codeine and as it happens it's made a huge difference to controlling my pain which is pretty darn good. So Mike B feel completely free to tell me that you told me so. As a bonus it's also improved my quality of sleep which has been wonderful.

The weight loss thing is difficult because with this illness I've got I don't have any sensation of hunger and with adding that to falling asleep for long periods of time I must've been forgetting to eat regularly. Needless to say my doctor has commanded me to EAT and I have to weigh myself regularly. My daughter is good because she's now checking to see what I've eaten during my waking hours and telling me off if I've forgotten. I now weigh wot I used to when I was 19 and I don't think there are too many women my age that can claim that.

This week has been really hard because I finally bit the bullet and started disposing of my Mum's belongings. It's really hard because Mum is still alive, but her dementia is now so far advanced that she's not my Mum anymore. There's just this living shell left that looks like my Mum, only the spark and personality that was my Mum has gone. While she was still herself Mum put all her affairs in my hands so I can go ahead and do this with good conscience, but oh it's just so painful to do.
Not surprisingly I ended up in tears sobbing uncontrollably and my daughter gathered me up and put me to bed. 'My turn to look after you now Mum,' is what she told me. My daughter is recovering from PTSD after working undercover on things I'm simply not allowed to tell you about and for a while there it was me that was taking care of her. That's the problem with us ex-health sector social workers, we're great at looking after everyone else but ourselves.
What makes this especially hard is that because Mum made her will in my favour my brothers won't have a bar of me. Back when Mum knew she was losing herself she asked me to contact my brothers because she wanted to say goodbye and make her with them. All I got for my pains was insults and some pretty darn hateful invective telling me what I could do with myself. My elder sister would be only to glad to help, but she lives 250 kms away, doesn't drive and she's caring for her husband who has a brain tumor.

So this afternoon found me working on my daughter's electric bicycle conversion. My daughter was in her room in bed asleep so I was just pottering about on my own out in the living room. I needed to do something with the front wheel so I decided to take it out to the workshop. As often happens I was feeling fatigued and it was all too tempting to go to bed myself. Opening my workshop door revealed wall to wall mess and the impossibility of doing anything on my workbench. For a moment I almost gave up and then I got angry. The thought of giving into this illness of mine yet again really stung me so I set to and started in on making my workshop a useful space again. When my daughter wakes up she's going to tell me off and I know that tomorrow I'm going to pay for all the work I did this afternoon, but my word it felt good to be doing something really physical for a change.
My scrap steel bin is properly sorted now and moved to a much better site in my workshop. All the material for the cyclecar is properly gathered together in the one place which is going to make things easier once I get back to working on it again (I have to finish my daughter's bike first because I promised).
It's all too temptingly easy to want to give up and stay in bed, but I'm not going to. The monsoon season seems to be passing off and we're getting some decent Spring weather at last. Apart from the cyclecar I've got some interesting motor bicycle projects I'd like to get back to and I personally think that tinkering around in my workshop would be good therapy for me. Lego is all very well (I have a large Lego collection), but at the end of the day I can't take wot I build from Lego out on the highway and get some wind in my hair.

Thank you so much gentlemen, even though you are all so far away I consider you to be good friends. Something I did do yesterday while I was cleaning up was wash my overalls so that can be considered to be a declaration of war against sitting about all day.
This morning when I woke up I felt quite well and had no problems with pain, so it looks like the new meds are doing their job. My daughter didn't tell me off either and was pleased to find out I'd been up and about and doing stuff. Truth be told she had been worried about her Mum suddenly changing into an old woman.
Mobility issues around aging and disability is something that gets me hot under my collar. While I do walk with a stick because it's better than falling down and making a pratt of myself, I will never never never get myself one of those mobility scooter things. I very much regard them as the kiss of death because they almost completely take away regular exercise out of their owner's lives.
Just lately folk around town have been looking at me with some surprise when they see me with my tricycle or my bicycle. 'Oh I heard you were sick,' they say. Well for a start I wouldn't be out riding on one of my bad days which is why I don't look like death warmed up and second I don't drive a car anymore (and besides I don't like driving a car anyway) and thirdly exercise is actually really good for me and I've stuck with it despite sometimes getting fatigued. (And of course I absolutely love riding a bicycle too). The town where I live actually isn't that big and when I see folk I know using their car to travel distances that could be easily walked or cycled I can't help but think they must be daft. Petrol here in New Zealand is expensive ($2.71 a litre is the latest price.) so I don't know how they are managing to keep a car on the road.
Years ago when I had my only major motorcycle accident when a learner driver totalled my lovely Suzuki Gt380 for me and busted my left knee open I discovered that I could walk the pain out of my knee once I was back on my feet again. So yes Allen W I completely understand the necessary bloody mindedness that is sometimes needed after illness or an accident.
And having sat here far too long typing this I'm now off to carry on with sorting out my workshop.

Well people of my generation used to say that, but we don't these days because people look at us funny.

Lunch break time: Taking it quietly today with mostly sorting nuts, bolts and washers as well as testing bicycle tubes to see if they're worth hanging onto or not.
I have a complete but somewhat shabby mountain bike I was going to break down for parts, but I decided to service and adjust it so my daughter can use it. The electric bike conversion is held up for electrickery parts so it makes sense to put the old mountain bike into running order again. Yesterday afternoon I was riding around in circles on the drive to assess whether the bike was worth saving and it seems to be in much better condition than I thought it was.

Ages ago I purchased a job lot of bicycle lugs from the heyday of the New Zealand bicycle industry (alas no more). One of the former factory buildings was being demolished and in a forgotten storeroom a great pile of pre-war British made bicycle frame lugs came to light. Basically I got the whole heap for scrap value, but I'm sure they're worth more than that. My intention was to build up a period copy bicycle frame, - which I may do yet, - but I've got waaay more lugs than I could ever use in this lifetime. They are rusty and will need cleaning which I shall do with the thought of selling them on fleabay; - however if a forum member wants to build themselves a pre-war copy frame for a bicycle or motor bicycle I'm quite willing to pass on sets of uncleaned lugs for free provided they pay the postage (and I like them and consider them a friend). Cleaned ones you'll have to pay real money for.

Some lugs I've got a great many of and others are in short supply, so if you're serious don't hang about waiting.

FFV8, at the moment I feel like I'm pushing the food in because I don't feel hungry, but I know I have to do it.

I hope you are well now and have the treatments behind you because I know they can really knock the stuffing out of you.